Spring 2026 Discussion

[Hoosier]

6 minutes ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

 

[jaster220]

19 hours ago, Hoosier said:

 

Extreme 8 and 1 would be cold in winter but what is it in spring??

[Niko]

On 4/7/2026 at 12:30 PM, jaster220 said:

As in Van Buren county? That's no where near yby, right?

Actually, no. I am much further north. Van Buren is 28 miles SW of downtown Detroit. Its near the DTW Metro airport.

[Hoosier]

2 hours ago, jaster220 said:

Extreme 8 and 1 would be cold in winter but what is it in spring??

Phase 8 tends to be warmer than phase 1 for much of the central US.  

[PhiEaglesfan712]

Looks like May is going to have a cool beginning in the Eastern US:

[chescowxman]

Today will likely be our mildest day for quite a while. We start a cooling trend tomorrow and it looks like our pattern over at least the next several weeks will feature generally below normal temperatures and above normal precipitation. Of note since March 1st we are at about 80% of our normal precipitation. We could pick up a 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch of rain from Friday night through Saturday. Saturday will be a chilly and raw day with winds off the still chilly ocean keeping temperatures not far from the current ocean water temp of around 50 degrees. Temperatures next week look to remain a little cooler than normal with rain chances increasing again by Monday night into Tuesday.

[Andie]

Today, they’re  giving us an 80% chance of thunderstorms. Cloudy and it’s abit humid. 54% so we will see. 
Tuesday, Thursday and Friday present possibilities for severe storms. 

[summerrules]

Definitely a proper April torch, and about time we saw one too. You’d have to go back to 2010 to find such widespread, warm anomalies in the region.

[PhiEaglesfan712]

PHL finishes April with average temperature 58.7 (4.2 degrees above 1991-2020 average and 4.7 degrees above the 1981-2010 average). This is the 4th warmest April on record.

[summerrules]

On 5/1/2026 at 7:00 PM, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

PHL finishes April with average temperature 58.7 (4.2 degrees above 1991-2020 average and 4.7 degrees above the 1981-2010 average). This is the 4th warmest April on record.

Lots of folks are downplaying the warmth this year, dunno why.

[Hoosier]

4 hours ago, summerrules said:

Lots of folks are downplaying the warmth this year, dunno why.

Who's downplaying it?

[Andie]

Looking busy out there. 
67*. Overcast

[Niko]

Spring should arrive here in S MI by end of next week. Near 80F possible??!! Who said that?!

[summerrules]

On 5/4/2026 at 9:07 PM, Hoosier said:

Who's downplaying it?

Mainly the EC snow lovers on AmWx. (and on twitter). The entire Ohio River/Tennessee valley had their warmest April (possibly even March-April) on record, but they don’t acknowledge that and instead overhyped the cooldown during the first half of May which was fairly unimpressive for the most part, in spite of the fact some very localized regions barely set record lows. We’ve had plenty of colder early-mid May periods, even in recent years (2020 comes to mind). I know parts of the region haven’t been quite as warm as other areas this spring, but even the Northeast has seen their fair share of anomalous warm spikes this spring. Again though, hardly acknowledged.

[tStacsh]

8 hours ago, summerrules said:

Mainly the EC snow lovers on AmWx. (and on twitter). The entire Ohio River/Tennessee valley had their warmest April (possibly even March-April) on record, but they don’t acknowledge that and instead overhyped the cooldown during the first half of May which was fairly unimpressive for the most part, in spite of the fact some very localized regions barely set record lows. We’ve had plenty of colder early-mid May periods, even in recent years (2020 comes to mind). I know parts of the region haven’t been quite as warm as other areas this spring, but even the Northeast has seen their fair share of anomalous warm spikes this spring. Again though, hardly acknowledged.

I think people are used to it being so "warm" now compared to average, every little cool down seems different than when it was just as normal as warm anomalies years ago.   Warm is outpacing cold by like 3-1 in the record books these days.  

[OttumwaSnomow]

Horrible. As soon as growing season arrives with warmer nights and warm soil temps goes dry for 25 days? We had zero rain 17 days April 29th to may 15. Now May 18th to mid June WITH NOTHING ON THE WAY! 

Iowa can have its good soil. I will take the weather further east!

[Hawkeye]

3 hours ago, OttumwaSnomow said:

Horrible. As soon as growing season arrives with warmer nights and warm soil temps goes dry for 25 days? We had zero rain 17 days April 29th to may 15. Now May 18th to mid June WITH NOTHING ON THE WAY! 

Iowa can have its good soil. I will take the weather further east!

Wettest time of the year and there is not a drop of rain in sight.  

[Clinton]

Not much in the way of storms showing up the next couple of weeks but mid June looks stormy for parts of the plains and the lower lakes.

[beaugie]

36 minutes ago, Clinton said:

Not much in the way of storms showing up the next couple of weeks but mid June looks stormy for parts of the plains and the lower lakes.

Sure hope so. After the extreme rains in April I figured we would dry out, but we've maybe has 1-2" in the last month max. Feel bad for all of you in that are in a prolonged drought, we are headed that way but at least got lucky last month which was basically a lucky week. 

[summerrules]

17 hours ago, tStacsh said:

I think people are used to it being so "warm" now compared to average, every little cool down seems different than when it was just as normal as warm anomalies years ago.   Warm is outpacing cold by like 3-1 in the record books these days.  

That and also Morch 2012 screwed with people’s heads. Certain folk out there think the freak 2012 March heatwave should be representative of what a normal spring should look/feel like despite it being one of the most anomalous weather events on record. Finished with a +14.5° departure that month and nearly five degrees warmer than the previous warmest March. Though funnily, March 2026 didn’t come too far off the warmth of March 2012 for parts of the lower Midwest in terms of daytime highs. Had it not been for the -WPO, the warmth likely would have been displaced/distributed in a different fashion, and Chicago would’ve recorded like a +8° or even +10° departure this March rather than the +4.9°, which was relatively (and surprisingly) low in comparison to other cities tbh. There were a lot of backdoor fronts that wouldn’t have occurred with a different large scale pattern alignment, and that’s what really drove the overall departure down for the Great Lakes region.

I think next spring will look much different though, perhaps more like 2010 with the warmth centered much farther north.

[PhiEaglesfan712]

20 hours ago, summerrules said:

I think next spring will look much different though, perhaps more like 2010 with the warmth centered much farther north.

FWIW, 2010 was the last time we had a strong el nino -> strong la nina transition. If it becomes apparent that a strong la nina is going to form in 2027-28, then 2010 could be a good analog for next spring.

[summerrules]

It would not surprise me if next spring ends up being even warmer.

[Hoosier]

3 hours ago, summerrules said:

It would not surprise me if next spring ends up being even warmer.

Anything can happen, but I can't really recall many torch Springs across the CONUS following a strong Nino.  I think some were regionally warm though.  But relatively small sample size of years if limiting it to post-strong Nino.

[summerrules]

34 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Anything can happen, but I can't really recall many torch Springs across the CONUS following a strong Nino.  I think some were regionally warm though.  But relatively small sample size of years if limiting it to post-strong Nino.

2024 featured a very warm spring for the eastern 2/3 of the country (my favorite spring of all time too), and it came right on the heels of a strong Nino. The West wasn’t very warm though. Yeah, now that I think about it, it’s going to be tough to beat this past spring in terms of national warmth.

[PhiEaglesfan712]

May average temperature finishes at 65.6 at PHL, which is 1.3 degrees above the 1991-2020 average (1.7 degrees above the 1981-2010 average).

Meterological spring average temperature finishes at 57.8 at PHL, which is tied for the 3rd warmest spring on record (with 1921, and behind only 2010 and 2012).

By the way, here is a composite of the last 4 post-strong el nino springs:

[summerrules]

On 6/4/2026 at 12:40 PM, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

May average temperature finishes at 65.6 at PHL, which is 1.3 degrees above the 1991-2020 average (1.7 degrees above the 1981-2010 average).

Meterological spring average temperature finishes at 57.8 at PHL, which is tied for the 3rd warmest spring on record (with 1921, and behind only 2010 and 2012).

By the way, here is a composite of the last 4 post-strong el nino springs:

Spring was weirdly warm this year IMO considering it was a decaying nina rapidly going into nino, though that didn’t really occur until deeper in the spring. Still, it’s surprising how warm the Midwest and Ohio River Valley in particular ended up being this spring (and even up here not too far off the IL/WI border). Just wasn’t expecting that region to experience the warmest departures this spring. But yeah, like I said in another post I think next spring is going to be very warm for the Midwest (possibly warmer than this past spring, though maybe not on a national scale) with it being centered much farther to the north than this past spring, more than likely.